The Plot Twist
by great-growlithe-gamer
Summary: A page has appeared in the 3, leaving the twins with lots of questions and no answers. What is real, and what is nothing more than an illusion? A race has begun amongst supernatural beings, and they're itching to capture the twins before the other beings for reasons unknown. The twins arrived to town thinking that some things never change. But does anything truly last forever?
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! Welcome to my first Gravity falls fanfic! It might seem a little OOC, but I'm still working on it. By the way, I'm not going to do pinecest. If you're looking for that, you will not find it here. The story is written in third person limited, and I will most likely be switching off from the twins' points of view.**

**CHAPTER 1:**

**(Dipper's POV)**

The twins were up in their room, retreating from all of the strange, unworldly adventures that they seemed to be so prone to have every day, and winding the rest of the day down while the sun set slowly. Dipper let out a small, contented sigh as he leafed through the pages of 3, investigating the mysteries of the town, while Mabel happily finished her knitting project - a sweater for Waddles, who seemed to have picked up on who the sweater was for and was avoiding Mabel as a result. At the moment, she was wearing her turquoise strawberry sweater. Grunkle Stan was probably downstairs counting his money and laughing at the stupid tourists, and Wendy and Soos had returned to their homes for the night.

Looking up from 3, Dipper quickly glanced over at Mabel in a somewhat paranoid manner, almost as if making sure she was still there. What he had just read shook him up a little.

Picking up on the subtle gesture, Mabel set down her almost-completed project and grinned knowingly at her twin. "What's the matter? Brave, fearless Dippy isn't _scared, _is he?" she raised an eyebrow as she taunted him, as if daring him to deny it.

"Wha-? No! no, not scared, just, ah, apprehensive. Yeah, that's the word." He tripped up on his words, cheeks growing red from embarrassment at the thought that his sister had picked up on his '_apprehensiveness_'. Unfortunately for him, he was a terrible liar when it came to things like that.

"The word you should be using is _chicken_, Dip! Bawk, bawk, Dipper's a chicken! Dipper's a chicken!" Mabel continued to taunt him relentlessly, getting up and doing a chicken impersonation while running around the room shouting.

Dipper immediately got up and covered her mouth, his face even more red than before. "Stop it, what if someone hears you?" he whispered hastily, taking his hand away from her mouth and looking around to make sure no one had heard that.

"So? They'd just be hearing what they already know! That you're a _c-h-i-c-k-e-n! chicken!_" she shouted, before being swiftly silenced by Dipper yet again.

"Quit it, Mabel! C'mon, or else I won't show you what I just found!" Dipper threatened, his face wearing a serious expression that Mabel liked to make fun of, but wouldn't at the time due to the threat given.

She sighed and slumped over grumpily, crossing her arms and muttering under her breath about 'The _Alpha twin_ not needing to be shushed' before getting over it immediately as usual and looking eagerly over at Dipper.

"What'd you find? Was it cool? Is it some sort of mythical creature, or some conspiracy? Ooh, oh, is it-" Dipper cut into Mabel's excited guesses and picked up the book, keeping it open as he did so.

"You won't find out if you talk over me, now will you?" he said smugly, smirking at his advantage over his twin sister.

"Not unless I do…THIS!" Mabel makes a lunge for the book, but Dipper darts back quickly and causes her to hit nothing but the ground.

She gets up with a goofy grin on her face. "That was awesome!"

"Well, if you're done with that, I have to show you what I found. Come here, you gotta look at this." Dipper motioned her over, putting the book on the ground and laying down in front of it, leaving room for Mabel and implying she do the same.

"Whoa. What is this?" Mabel took a sharp intake of air as she looked upon the contents of the page. Notes and sketches and various images were scattered across the two pages that were visible, with a title at the top telling what the subject was.

Dipper looked at her seriously, not that he didn't usually look serious. "This is why I was _apprehensive_ *fake cough*_definitelynotscared_ *fake cough*." He poorly hid what he had been saying, before turning back to the opened book in front of him.

"This is what I saw. These pages go into extreme detail about…" he paused for a moment, "us."

"But how? I mean, whoever wrote this didn't know us, and you found this on the first day here! And look, it has information on some of the stuff we did _after_ the first day!" Mabel exclaimed shrilly, beginning to panic. She stood up and ran over to her bed, where she looked at the book warily, as if it were the stalker.

"Exactly. The thing is, I've read through this book, cover to cover _at least _10 times, and I've never found this section. This has happened around 7 times, pages will pop up that weren't there before. I think…I think that whoever wrote this is watching us, Mabel. Look at this, this little note says that we're 'primary targets'. Do you have any idea what that means?!" Dipper asked, worry creeping into his voice as he pointed at the said notation.

Mabel slowly shook her head no, beginning to tuck her head into her sweater. She was usually not the scared one, but this was likely beginning to ring some alarm bells for her. They were being watched? Why would they be watched?

"It _means,_ that all those monsters and weird stuff we've seen, they weren't just a coincidence! Think about it, nobody in this town seems to encounter them but us! It makes so much more sense, they're _targeting us!_ They could be planning something! We could be in some _serious danger!"_ Dipper exclaimed, voice cracking and forgetting to stay quiet as he stood and threw his hands up to emphasize his words.

'_I know I've always got some conspiracy theory, but this is really crazy, and that makes more sense than I would like it to.'_ Dipper thought nervously to himself, looking at the book which was lying open on the floor, still showing the suspicious section that had shown up seemingly overnight.

Before either twin could do anything else, a man's voice drifted into the room, the source unidentified. It was deep and smooth sounding. "Very good. I knew you'd think of it sooner or later." A slow, almost mocking clap followed the statement, and the twins looked around in alarm.

"Who said that? Who are you?" Dipper demanded, edging towards Mabel and preparing to stand in front of her. He was not taking chances with whatever this thing was. Mabel simply gasped and retreated a bit into her sweater, apparently trembling.

"Oh, you will learn. For now though….well, I'd be more worried about the people at your door." As if on cue, the doorbell rang, and Dipper's eyes darted to the attic's exit.

"Goodbye, and if I may, I have some advice." The stranger, who they still couldn't see, said politely.

Mabel cautiously peeped out from her sweater, eyes just far enough above the rim of it for her to look around. "What is it?" she asked quietly, something similar to anticipation behind her voice. Dipper chalked it up to nervousness. This wasn't like her at all. Dipper wondered suspiciously if whoever was after them had replaced her with someone else or something, but shook the thought as soon as it came. He was with her all day, he would have noticed.

"My advice is…just don't die." And with that, the stranger seemed to have left, just as quickly as he came.

'_Just don't die? That sounds like a warning, not a threat…'_ Dipper thought to himself.

Dipper glanced around the room to make sure everything was in order, and the doorbell rang yet again. He slowly walked over to Mabel, whose' sweater was shaking as if from crying, and tugged on her sleeve. "Mabes, whatever that was all about it's over. C'mon downstairs, maybe you can take your mind off it…" he said soothingly, trying to calm her down. It was his job to be the worrier, not hers. Her job was to keep everyone's spirits up, and without her doing that, Dipper would be too skeptical and nervous to do anything.

'_I hate to see her upset, she's never upset. Why is she upset at this, we've seen scarier…' _Dipper ends his train of thought there, not wanting to overthink anything. He looked to Mabel, who was moving.

She moved her head fully out of the sweater, uncovering a wide, brace-filled smile. Had she been…_laughing in there? _"Dipper! do you know what that means?" she squealed excitedly, putting her arms back through the sleeves and jumping off the bed, bouncing around in front of Dipper.

Dipper blinked and took a step back. "Apparently not…" he said flatly, mildly embarrassed by his actions being so out of context and mostly exasperated with his sister's behavior. If he could do one of those sweat drops, he would.

"It means I have a secret admirer! That was a guy!" Mabel enthused cheerily, skipping around the room and humming something to herself, probably a love song. So the 'shaking' was actually laughter, the 'anticipation' was excitement, and the 'hiding' in her sweater was covering her blushing? '_I should have known she wasn't upset…'_ Dipper thought sheepishly to himself, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand in an embarrassed manner.

He sighed and placed his face into his palm. Not exactly what he had been thinking, but whatever, that was Mabel for you. "Sure, whatever floats your boat. We better go answer the door." Dipper said in an exasperated manner, wondering why Mabel had to be in love with someone new every other day.

In his mind, he was still going over all of the things the voice said. It seemed non-hostile, but he couldn't be sure until they conversed again. One thing was for sure though, whoever that was _definitely _was not in love with either of the twins, thankfully. He would just let Mabel keep thinking what she liked though.

He then turned his thoughts to the visitors. Why would anyone visit at this time of night? The sun had set by now, it was somewhere around 10:20. Why would someone visit the shack so late?

Scuttling down the wooden hatch and creaky old stairs quickly, both Dipper and Mabel raced to the front door of the gift shop, nearly tripping over fake displays and exhibits, but carefully avoiding touching the merchandise. They got there at the same time, and Dipper answered it.

Standing in the doorway, two adult, pale, and lanky people stood, one man, one woman. They wore old-timey clothes and large, identical smiles, and it was actually a little offsetting. "We have business with Mr. Stanford Pines, do you mind if we come in?" the woman asked cordially, dipping her head politely at the twins.

Dipper looked around nervously. "We'll have to check, bye!" he said in a rush, before quickly slamming the door and wheeling around to face Mabel.

"Mabel, do you think these guys are here to finally arrest him?" he whispered hurriedly, anxiously glancing back at the old wooden door. That wouldn't work, they still had to live here for the rest of the summer! And, although Dipper hated to admit it, his Grunkle Stan was pretty fun. He was not as intolerable as he was in the beginning of the summer, and Dipper actually didn't want him arrested.

Mabel giggled and shrugged, continuing to hum that same song. She then stopped abruptly, and grinned. "Probably. We should ask them." She turns to open the door, reaching for the knob, but Dipper stops her, not even bothering to tell her why that was a bad idea, and yells for their great uncle instead.

"Grunkle Stan! It's for you!" He shouted, receiving the gruff reply of "Whatever crime they're accusing me of, I didn't commit it. Tell them visiting hours are over if they're tourists."

Dipper nodded even though his grunkle couldn't see him, and cleared his throat, opening the door with a slight creak coming from its' hinges in protest.

"Sorry guys, but visiting hours are over." He said promptly, preparing to shut the creaky door.

"Wait! It's not Stanford we want. Would you invite us in so we might explain?" the man said desperately, trying to convince Dipper to let them in.

"Hmm….what are your names?" Dipper asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed and a questioning air about his words plain to hear. Something was not right here…

"Erm…Mr. and Mrs. Lastname?" the woman shrugged, and said hopefully, the statement coming out more like a question.

'_Lastname? Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Do they really expect us to buy that?'_ Dipper thought, before glancing at Mabel, who seemed completely fooled by the poor last name. '_On second thought…' _Dipper's train of thought was interrupted by the man at the door, whose phone was ringing.

"Just a moment please. I must take this call." The man requested, taking out an old type of phone. Dipper sighed, and shut the door, turning to Mabel yet again. "They're fakes for sure. They aren't coming in, got it?" he explained to her, straightening his worn out hat and turning to face the door and tell them to leave.

"What, that sounds legitimate to me!" Mabel protested his decision, crossing her arms.

"Mr. and Mrs. _Lastname? _Really Mabel? _Really_?" Dipper said irridiculously, throwing his hands up dramatically and making a point.

"They seem trustworthy. Why don't we listen to what they say while the door is shut? You know, spy?" Mabel suggested helpfully, still grinning as usual.

"You mean eavesdrop?" Dipper replied bluntly, raising an eyebrow.

"That doesn't matter, let's listen!" Mabel shrugged it off and put an ear to the old wooden door, listening to what the people said on the other side. Dipper rolled his eyes, smiled, and did the same.

What they heard confused them. "Yes…I know the job, get the twins….take them to base….I don't know why you want us to be careful, those kids can't hurt the undead…I understand that the others have failed, but I can't go into the house unless invited, you know that! Ugh, yeah, yeah, we'll try to retrieve them. Bye. *the phone beeps as the man hangs up* Blasted idiots back at base, sending vampires for a kidnapping…where are those twins anyway?" the man grumbled, and knocked on the door, rattling both Dipper and Mabel's heads, which were still against the door. They jerked away from the door as if it were fire, and quickly whispered to each other.

"I told you!" Dipper hissed angrily. "They can't come in here!"

"Well sor-ry! But did you hear what they said?" Mabel asked back quickly.

"You mean the plan to kidnap us? Yeah, I heard!" Dipper replied harshly, still agitated by the strangers at the door. Kidnapping? Who do they think they are?

"No, they're Vampires! I wonder if they have a son that looks our age…" Mabel said dreamily, staring off into space with a happy look on her face, probably daydreaming about romance with a vampire.

"Mabel! Snap out of it! We need to get them away from here!" Dipper waved a hand in front of her face, snapping her out of her fantasies.

"Hey! What would be wrong with dating a-" Mabel is cut off by Dipper.

"Not the point!" Dipper scolded her, pointing to the door, which was still being knocked on.

"It was one of the points…" she mumbled flatly.

Ignoring her, Dipper opened the door once again, for it was being knocked on quite forcefully at that point, and it threatened to tear off the hinges if it suffered further abuse from the strong pounding.

"Sorry, we looked in the phone book, we couldn't find anyone under the last name 'Lastname'." That was a lie, as they did not have a phonebook, as Grunkle Stan was too cheap, but Dipper continued as if it weren't a lie before being cut off by Mabel.

"But, we decided maybe we could talk so-" Dipper quickly shoved Mabel to the side before she could invite them in, hastily telling her in a whisper to go sit in the living room until he dealt with them and then turning to face the door again while she skulked away.

"Also, it's getting close to our _bedtime_," Dipper nearly winced at the word, hating the thought of making himself look more childish than mature, but continued without any further hesitation for fear of getting caught."...so we really need to be hitting the sack now. Bye!" Dipper slammed the door as fast as he could before the people at the door could protest, then quickly locked it and pressed his back against it, before wiping his brow of sweat and exhaling out of relief when he heard the 'visitors' angrily stomp down the porch steps and leave.

He gave the door a pat as if to thank it for holding, and walked into the living room, already dreading the conversation he was going to have for the fiftieth time that summer, about why Mabel could not date the supernatural people here.

He sighed again. '_I swear, if she could she'd have tried to date the couch by now. Are girls always so guy-crazy?' _he thought to himself, shaking his head. It was just Mabel being Mabel, he assumed.

**(Mabel's POV)**

Mabel heard Dipper slam the door loudly, and let out a breath of relief before walking towards her. She decided to get up from Grunkle Stan's worn yellow chair, sit on the floor, and not talk to Dipper. After all, he had just ruined a chance at vampire love! And to think, she had been working on a _scrapbook_ for that jerk! '_Well," _Mabel thought huffily, '_now he'll just have to make his own scrapbook.'_

"Ok, that's all overwith…what are you up to, Mabel? Wanna watch Duck Detective? Or maybe Tiger Fist?" Dipper asked casually, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.

"No." Mabel replied bluntly, crossing her arms and turning on the floor to face away from Dipper. He turned her back around.

"Oh! I know, you like that show, the one with the lady, ahh, what's it called, what's it called…." Dipper snapped as he remembered the name of one of her favorite TV shows. "Why You Ackin' so Cray Cray, right?" Dipper beams, seemingly pleased with himself for remembering.

A part of Mabel wanted to admit that he was a pretty awesome sibling for remembering that, he'd only seen her watching it once or twice and she'd only talked about it to him once, a while ago. But, the bigger part of Mabel was still mad at him, so she simply 'hmmphed' at his suggestion and turned away.

She heard Dipper sigh behind her and shortly after, heard footsteps as he approached.

"Mabel, c'mon, cut it out. Let's do something, your pick." Dipper offered, nudging Mabel in the shoulder.

"I don't wanna." Mabel mumbled, moodily sticking her head and arms into her sweater.

"Mabel.." Dipper whined, now tugging on the emptied sleeve on the left side of her sweater. "C'mon, you know I had to do that, we can't invite them in! Besides, there's no way they had a son our age! Or, one that looked our age, whatever. We can go ahead and do whatever you want, honest! I'll help you bezzazle your face again! Anything!" he pleaded, hoping the offer would appeal to her.

It sounded really fun…

'_No! I'm mad at him, remember?' _Mabel scolded herself internally. There was no way she'd forgive this one so easily.

She shook her head no inside her sweater.

"Can I at least talk to you about it?" he begged, turning the sweater around to face him and trying to move her head out of the sweater after. She pulled it back in.

"No. Mabel's in sweater town." She replied stubbornly.

"I'll let you make short jokes about me! Or, or, I could do the wolf boy dance on tape! I'd even do the Lamby Lamby dance if I had the costume, just stop being so mad at me, please!" Mabel's eyes widened as she realized what he just offered, and she peeked out of her sweater.

"But you hate all of those things!" she exclaimed, wondering why he would offer to all that for her when he knew she would blackmail him with it later.

"Yeah, well I just want you to stop being so mad at me! You're _never_ this mad at me. I can't name one time you have been, and to be honest I hate this much more than doing that stuff. I mean, you are my _twin sister,_ we've done just about everything together since we were babies, so if we aren't doing that….it's just uncomfortable." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and fidgeted, only proving the statement to be true.

"Yeah, but what if they had a son? That's a vampire boyfriend right there, you _know_ I always wanted to have one!" Mabel protested, still trying to keep herself from forgiving him.

'_Stop being such a pushover!'_ She thought angrily to herself.

It was really sweet of him to say that though…

"Mabel, you know how unlikely that was. Also, you were right there the whole time we were listening in on them, they were going to kidnap us! What if they planned on killing us? They could, easily! Where would you be then? I'll tell you, it's definitely not with a boyfriend. Or, what if you _did _somehow get a vampire boyfriend? How long would it be until he moved on, or you moved on, or heck, we went back home? Which is going to happen, probably. " Dipper pointed out all of the hard facts that she had overlooked and forced her to think about them. It was true, even if they did have a son, it would never work out.

"Hmph, fine, I'll forgive you." Mabel admitted mock grudgingly, even though she was glad she didn't have to act all mad anymore. She hated being mad at people, it just wasn't in her nature.

"Yes!" Dipper cheered, doing a fist pump.

"Under one condition." Mabel finished her statement, pointing to Dipper.

"Which is?" Dipper inquired, probably expecting one of the things he had mentioned.

"You have to let people call us the Mystery Twins." Mabel said cheerfully, her bad mood pretty much thrown out the window.

"Deal. So, do you want to go figure out more about the whole targeted thing? That might have something to do with those people at the door. Not to mention that voice, who was that?" Dipper asked, looking quickly in the direction of the hatch to get to their room before turning his attention back to Mabel.

"Eh. I mean, we already know that Gideon hates our guts, so why is it surprising? It's like, eleven, let's have a toothbrush race instead!" Mabel suggested happily, turning to run to the bathroom. "If I win, you have to get the early shift tomorrow!"

"Mabel, you ate all of the toothpaste again, remember? We have to use Grunkle Stan's toothpaste on the shelf. And we both start work at the shack at the same time!" Dipper pointed out, reminding Mabel of earlier that day and of their schedule.

Ooh, yeah, she _did _do that, didn't she? The schedule thing was also true.

"Oh. Hmm….let's try and race anyways! Last one to get onto the shelf and steal the toothpaste is a rotten egg!" Mabel took off before she finished her statement, speeding down the hall to the bathroom before Dipper could start.

Jumping onto the toilet seat to reach the top of the shelf above it, Mabel proceeded to knock everything off of it, grabbing the toothpaste before it fell and leaving a mess of other things scattered across the floor.

"I win! You're the rotten egg! And _I'm _the Alpha Twin!" Mabel enthused, holding the toothpaste victoriously above her head. "Don't worry Dip, you probably couldn't have reached it anyways." Dipper rolled his eyes at the statement. He had actually caught up with her, it hadn't taken more than a week for him to _naturally_ grow a millimeter and match her in height again, but she still liked to make the short jokes.

"Come on, get your toothbrush out and race! Ready, set, brush!" Mabel set up both her and Dipper's toothbrushes with the toothpaste and the two began to move the brushes back and forth rapidly, at the cost of leaving even more of a mess on the floor from the toothpaste that dribbled down to it.

Dipper won the race.

Spitting out any toothpaste that had remained in his mouth during the duration of the race, Dipper washed his mouth out and shouted "I win!"

Mabel followed the action shortly after, lightly slugging him on the shoulder and giving a defeat speech of "I'll get you next time, Dippingsauce!"

The two then took a moment to look around at the room.

Various bathroom objects like shampoo, brushes, hair gel and air freshener, the cheap pine tree hanging ones that you can get (or steal) virtually anywhere, were all over the floor. On top of that, there was toothpaste foam all over the floor as well, and somehow in the middle of the race they had knocked over the soap, breaking it into slippery pieces on the counter, and the one filthy towel that was never washed had fallen as well.

All in all, it looked like a tornado had struck the room.

Mabel put the towel back in place, dusted her hands off, and looked around the room again.

"All clean!" She declared proudly, striking a pose, and then started upstairs to their bedroom. Dipper lingered behind, then shrugged off whatever he had been thinking of the messy room and followed Mabel.

Once in the room, Dipper took off his vest and threw it haphazardly onto the floor, while Mabel took her sweater and did the same. They were in their pajamas now.

"Ok Dipper, let's check out those pages in the 3 tomorrow, got it? Don't go looking through it without me!" Mabel warned, before sliding under the covers of her bed and rolling onto her side, the one that faced Dipper's bed, so she could keep an eye on him.

Dipper paralleled the action, getting into his own bed, and they had a brief staring contest before falling soundly asleep.

**AN: And that has been chapter one! This story is my first Gravity Falls fanfic, but I'm pretty excited for it. Also, could you find the reference to another Disney channel TV show in here? Tell me what you think of the story, and let me know if you find any errors that I should try and fix. Thanks for reading!**


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Hi guys! Thanks so much for checking out the first chapter, and this one! I feel so excited to see what you guys think for where this is going! What I'm going to try to do is reference a Disney thing in each chapter and see if you guys can guess it! I'm also going to try and include a mythical or fictional creature in each chapter! Soo…if you guys suggestions for creatures or guesses to what the references were, PM me or leave a review! I like to know what you guys think! Thank's for reading this overly-long AN, here's the chapter!**

**(Mabel's POV)**

Mabel slowly woke up, her eyes slowly opening, and she noticed right off the bat that something was wrong. Very wrong.

She shut her eyes tightly for a moment, before opening them again. Maybe what she was seeing was a dream?

Standing, in the middle of her and Dipper's room, there was a figure.

He or she was wearing a long, worn out brown coat with patches all over it, like it had been sown back up quite a bit, and a hat that masked their face in shadow at all times. The stranger also wore long brown pants that matched the jacket in how worn out and beaten-up they were. He was standing idly at the side of Dipper's bed, seemingly debating something.

Looking out the window, Mabel concluded that the sky was still pretty dark.

For a second, she thought to scream. But then she stopped herself, as she remembered something Dipper told her about horror movies. He had said , "_Most of the time, screaming is pointless because whatever it is can already see you. But, if you scream before it can see you, you're giving up a chance for a sneak attack."_

'_Well, he was right on that one, as usual. I have to sneak up on this person.' _Mabel thought, agreeing with his logic and deciding she would give the sneak attack a try.

Mabel slowly began to slide out of the bed, and lightly stepped over to where the stranger stood, trying to not make a sound.

If she could just sneak up a little closer behind the stranger…

"Ah, Mabel. I see you're awake. Good morning." Mabel froze in place, right behind the stranger. It was the same person from yesterday. At least, she was pretty sure it was. Did he have just the faintest trace of an accent? Or was she imagining it? Wasn't this guy her secret admirer? But…he had been standing over Dipper's bed, suspiciously…

She was beginning to question the stranger's motives, a first for her.

Even so, she didn't hesitate to do what she always did when she heard that statement. "Good morning." Mabel replied absentmindedly, before realizing what she did.

She looked around the room quickly, and, seeing no better option, launched herself at Dipper's bed in hopes of waking him up.

"Gah! Mabel, what the heck was that….for." Dipper jolted awake and shot up, at first angry with Mabel, before realizing they weren't alone and turning to stare at the stranger. He quietly finished his sentence as he swallowed and continued to stare nervously at the man.

"Good morning, Dipper. Now that we're all awake, I believe we've yet to speak formally." The stranger greeted Dipper cordially, turned around, and walked over to where the torn old 3 journal sat on the floor, picking it up.

"Why are you here?" Dipper asked the man cautiously, probably not expecting a truthful answer but in the very least hoping to learn something. Mabel watched the man's every move, occasionally glancing back to where her grappling hook was hidden and wondering if she'd have to use it.

Quickly flipping through the yellowed pages, the stranger spoke to the twins. "You see, I am not here of malicious intent. This book - it is my friend who wrote it. I sometimes take it to him to add new pages. That is where the new pages come from, the ones you find randomly. Anyhow, you both seemed worried about the pages on the subject of you two." At this point, he held the book up, showing the pages he was speaking of.

"Well yeah, that stuff could mean a lot of things, a lot of _bad _things." Dipper responded, a slight edge in his voice. He sounded like he hadn't gotten much sleep last night. Had he been staying up?

Mabel looked at her brother. He always had those bags under his eyes, but they were worse than usual this morning. His hair was also always this messy. But he was slouched and had a tired look to him as a whole, as opposed to his usual posture.

'_Looks like Dipper had a rough night.'_ Mabel thought, before returning her attention to the stranger, who was speaking again.

"I cannot say that is untrue. But you must understand, these pages are a warning, not a threat. The visitors at the door last night, did you figure out what they really were?" the stranger asked, beginning to walk back and forth across the room. Mabel nodded quickly and Dipper did also.

"Vampires. We heard them talking on the phone about kidnapping us and taking us to a 'base'. What would they want with us?" Dipper asked the question that had been on Mabel's mind as well.

What _did _they want with them?

"It's gone that far already? I have to alert my Intel about this…." The stranger muttered, putting a hand to his temples under the hat and rubbing the area as if he had a headache, before shaking it off and continuing to talk.

"A battle of epic proportions is about to begin. A battle over something that many mythical and strange creatures want in their own possession. At first, it had been an accident. Just stumbled across what they hadn't even realized would be helpful to them. But progressively…as word began to get around, the 'something' became more than an accidental discovery. It became something that would be searched for, by many beings. It became one giant scavenger hunt for the 'something'. And frankly, you two….you're hiding in all the worst possible places." The stranger concluded, laying the book down and smoothing his jacket with gloved hands.

"Are you saying _we're_ the something?" Mabel asked, shocked and fascinated by the idea. They were being tracked down? Why?

"Yes." The stranger replied, giving a curt nod. He then continued to pace.

"What do _we_ have that _they_ want?" Dipper asked irridiculously, trying to sound doubtful even though fear shadowed the words he said.

"Yeah, I mean, they already can do all that cool stuff. I don't think they need anything else. Except maybe sparkles. Everything needs sparkles." Mabel pointed out, strengthening her brother's argument before adding her own two cents. She scooted a little closer to him and grinned, as if doing that would solve the problem at hand.

"Well, try telling _them_ that. Think of it as a giant game, with many sides. Frankly you two are never going to come out on top without joining one. At the moment, I'm afraid that the teams are, for lack of better words, _uncivilized_. Yes, it's quite awful. Right now I'd say the biggest threat would be the draconic-like ones, what an unpleasant bunch they are, always bickering like schoolchildren….they're a very divided bunch, there are different sides in that group alone. This is complex ordeal, if I do say so myself." The stranger muttered, looking down at his wristwatch as he did so.

'_Hehe. He talks funny.' _Mabel thought to herself, stifling a giggle at how many big words he used.

"Oh, look at the time. I do apologize for coming in uninvited, but I should leave now." The stranger glanced at the window, noticing that the sky was beginning to get lighter, and the yellow light painted the low-hanging clouds. Morning was fast approaching.

The stranger climbed out the window, and while he was doing that, Mabel thought she saw the light from the sunrise glint off something in his jacket pocket that had been raised slightly out of the pocket when the stranger brought his knee up to climb out the window. A tube, or a vial of some sort? Maybe a bottle? She didn't see much other than a corked top and glass below it. It was still entirely full of an oddly colored liquid, whatever was in there hadn't been used or drank from.

But before she could think too much on it, the stranger was out the window and gone, vanishing from sight almost immediately.

Mabel exchanged glances with Dipper. It was clear they were both thinking the same thing: What time of the morning is this? Well, either that or Dipper was thinking about something serious and Mabel was just wondering what time it was.

"Kids, wake up! Eat your breakfast, the shack opens in a half hour!" Grunkle Stan called them from the kitchen before anything could be said, and they scrambled downstairs for breakfast as quickly as possible. If they didn't have breakfast, they wouldn't eat anything until 1:00 or 2:00, and that wasn't very fun.

Both of them skidded to a stop at the wooden table, before pulling out their chairs and sitting down.

"Take your scrambled meat, and don't be late for work." Grunkle Stan slid the meat onto their plates, which they had grabbed on their way to the table, and walked away to get dressed in his suit and prep the shack for another day of scamming innocent tourists.

The twins ate their meal hurriedly, before rushing right back upstairs so that Dipper could get his vest and hat, and Mabel could get one of her sweaters. She chose one with a four-leaf clover on it, randomly grabbing it from her pile. Maybe it would give her luck.

They completed the rest of their morning rituals in time to get to their posts in the shack just before opening.

"Good job, you two weren't late for a change. Mabel, you sweep," Grunkle Stan began assigning everyone's jobs for the day, pointing at the people as he listed their jobs.

"Yay!" Mabel exclaimed, going off to grab the broom, which she had 'bezazzled' a while back, along with a few other items.

"Wendy, you do the cash register,"

"Whatever." Wendy shrugged and went to her assigned job.

"..and Soos...you just…repair major damages if there are any, I guess. Don't you dare use any expensive supplies though. Anyways, We have a tourist bus comin' in a half hour."

"On it, Mr. Pines." Soos gave him a salute, and walked away.

"Dipper, work with your sister," Dipper had a fleeting moment of hope as Stan said this, which quickly fell flat as he heard Grunkle Stan continue. "…then get your costume on in 20 minutes, and don't forget you need to be able to earn enough to pay for it, since you and your sister shredded the last one."

Dipper gave a defeated sigh and went to work.

Grunkle Stan was very fond of the dancing wolf boy attraction, it seemed. He was pretty upset when he noticed that Mabel had shredded it.

Naturally, he got Dipper another wolf costume.

**(Dipper's POV)**

'_I hate this costume with a passion.'_ Dipper thought defeatedly, '_But I still have to wear it, so why complain?'_ at the requested time, Dipper came out of the bathroom, changed into his costume. It was pretty much a carbon copy of the old one, and just as demeaning.

He sighed dejectedly and went up onto the little space where he did his act. Over, and over, and over again.

But to be honest, Dipper was glad for the distraction.

It kept his mind off of all he had learned that morning, but in between breaks, the thoughts always came creeping back in, thoughts about what could happen, sending shivers up his spine.

They could come at any moment. Anywhere, anytime, anyplace.

And what about the 'sides'? The sides, what about the _sides?_

What would happen if Mabel fell into one, or got captured, and Dipper was stuck in another or without one?

What would happen then?

Would they be pitted _against each other?_

Would they even still be able to _live together_?

Dipper couldn't stand the thoughts of what might happen. Every second he was away from Mabel doing his routine, was one second that the enemy had to take her, or even him. Every crucial second in the day was an opportunity for them to kidnap him and his sister, or only take one.

And if they only took one of them….then it would all mean nothing.

Every precaution he had taken so far in the summer, every time he had come and helped her out of a problem or she had helped him would mean absolutely _nothing. _

Horrible, wretched thoughts plagued his overthinking mind all day long, making him so distressed that the bags under his eyes became even more prominent.

Finally, the working day ended.

As soon as it was over, Dipper rushed over to the bathroom, getting changed out of his wolf-boy costume in record time and speeding back over to Mabel, who had just flipped over the sign to say that the shack was closed.

"Quittn' time!" she exclaimed cheerfully. She seemed like she had been totally undisturbed by bad thoughts all day long.

'_Lucky her…'_ Dipper thought secretly to himself.

"So Dipper, I was thinking….maybe we could check out some of the old stuff in Grunkle Stan's room for clues on what that guy was talking about earlier. He was being kinda mysterious-y and stuff, you know, so maybe Grunkle Stan has some old document that can tell us about what the guy meant!" She explained what she had been thinking happily to Dipper, tugging on his arm in the direction of their Grunkle's room.

"Mabel, that might be a bad idea, considering the chances of that happening are almost exactly _zero,_ and the chances of us getting in trouble are almost _certain._ Let's try and look at some stuff in the 3, ok? We can't possibly get in trouble for that." Dipper reasoned, trying to talk her out of it.

But it was too late, once Mabel got the notion in her head there was no stopping her from carrying out her plan.

"You're just being a chicken. C'mon!" She quickly grabbed onto Dipper's left arm and forcefully pulled him over to Grunkle Stan's room. It was clear he would be a part of this with or without his own consent.

He gave in and followed her lead, considering he was actually pretty curious about what they'd find anyways.

The twins crept cautiously and quietly into the room, and were drawn to look for clues in the wooden vanity in their Grunkle's room.

Upon inspecting it, they found many things, from beat-up fake attractions to old and obviously forged documents.

But what fascinated them the most was an old, black and white photo that sat in place neatly in the corner of the vanity's mirror, and had on it the image of a little girl no older than their age standing happily in front of a new-looking mystery shack. She had on a baseball cap with a kitten on the front, her hair was pulled back into a single, long braid, and she was smiling exuberantly at the camera, with a younger-looking Grunkle Stan doing his signature pose behind her with a grin.

The picture was worn and wrinkled, and perhaps even a little faded at the corners, which were blunt and not crisp as a new photo's corners would be. It was not terribly wrinkled or dusty, signifying that it had been - and was still being - handled a lot, and with care.

"Whoa…" Mabel whispered, dazed. "Who is that?" she slowly began to reach for the picture as she said this.

Before she could reach it, a voice came from the doorway.

"Remember what I said about not touching the merchandise? That goes triple for my stuff."

Both twins stiffened at the voice, and froze in place.

Grunkle Stan walked up from behind them at a leisurely pace suiting his old age.

"You know, you little gremlins could be in huge trouble for this." He commented, before turning them around to face him. "But I'm in a good mood today, and it does sorta have something to do with you two, so I'll answer your question. That girl in the picture? That's your mother as a kid." Grunkle Stan picked up the old photo gingerly as he said this, pointing to the picture.

"Wait, so mom's been here before? Is that why she decided to send us here for the summer?" Dipper asked curiously, suddenly even more intrigued by the old picture. That was their mom as a kid? He could kind of see it, actually.

"Yep. The first summer this place was open, my brother sent her over here. That was a good summer. She was just like you two put together, always babbling about some weird stuff in the woods like Dippy over here, and then changing her hat every few hours like Mabel and her sweaters. It's funny how much you guys remind me of what she used to do." Grunkle Stan smiled, as if remembering some of it now made him pleased.

"So our mom's seen all that crazy stuff too?!" Mabel exclaimed, wheeling around to face Dipper excitedly.

Dipper either hadn't heard or wasn't listening, as a thoughtful look had crossed upon his face. He was thinking.

His face lit up as he apparently thought of something.

"Hey, Grunkle Stan? You wouldn't happen to have one of her hats, would you?" he asked nonchalantly, as if it was simply a casual question. He had an idea.

"Sure, tons. But I don't think it'll help your manliness problem to walk around wearing any of them." Grunkle Stan laughed at his joke, before showing them a closet stuffed full with hats.

"She stayed for more than one summer, so…yeah, to be honest I don't even know how she got that many hats. Have fun with your fashion party, Dip." Grunkle Stan shrugged, laughed, and walked away.

Dipper rolled his eyes and grabbed a hat from the pile.

"Ok, so here's the thing. If our mom spent a few summers here, and _saw_ all the same crazy stuff we've seen…then at least one crazy thing would recognize her hats! If we put one out as some sort of bait, we might attract one of them and see if he, she, or it knows anything about this whole 'sides' stuff." Dipper explained, eyeing the hat he had picked out. It had an embroidery of a cute mouse with red pants on it.

"Isn't the point to _avoid _those guys? I'm confused." Mabel asked curiously, not following her brother's logic.

Dipper contemplated this for a minute, before speaking again.

"Well, maybe it'll attract an ally. And if it doesn't, we can trap and interrogate whatever it did attract. I say we leave it out by the back window. That way we can walk past it and check on what's happened." He decided, confident in his decision making skills.

Mabel simply shrugged and went along with it. Dipper was usually right anyways.

The two went outside and set the hat as bait, making sure it looked like it had fallen off of someone's head accidentally.

All they had to do was wait.

Eventually, after a few hours of long, agonizing waiting, Dipper's prediction came true.

The twins were sitting in front of the window, bored and having second thoughts about the plan, for it was getting dark and nothing had even happened yet. All of a sudden, something large came racing through the brush and towards the hat.

'_This is it!'_ Dipper thought excitedly.

It dove, letting out a mangled screech.

Dipper and Mabel, seeing but not quite comprehending, raced outside to confront the creature without even getting a good look at it.

When they arrived at the scene, they saw a huge creature, part lion, part goat, and part some sort of serpent. It was screeching in a high pitch, and chewing at the top of the hat with a hungry look in its eyes. When the twins appeared it snarled.

"What _is _this thing?" Dipper wondered aloud, and flipped through the 3.

Mabel peeked over his shoulder at the page he flipped onto.

"The Chimera, huh?" Dipper read the title of the page, which bore a detailed illustration of the creature before them. "The Chimera is an extremely primal creature, living off animalistic instinct. Unlike many of the other creatures in Gravity Falls, it is incapable of speech or telepathy, and does not show signs of human intelligence. It will most likely kill you, unless you choose to tame it with meat…..training tips, more tips, anatomy…." Dipper skimmed through the rest of the pages, finding nothing useful, though he found something in the training tips.

"Favorite prey is mice….." Dipper shut the book and sighed, looking over at Mabel. "Sorry sis, looks like this thing was just looking for some food and saw the mouse on the hat. I guess this _was_ a kind of dumb plan, huh?" Dipper looked at his feet, obviously disappointed.

"Whatevs! Let's tame this thing Dipper, I've always wanted a…what's it called again? Chimera, right! Look at him, isn't he adorable? He'd get along so great with Waddles! Stay here, I'm gonna go get all of the leftover scrambled meat from the fridge!" Mabel enthused, dashing into the shack and back out with the mentioned meat.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up. Mabel, where on earth would we keep this thing? And what if Grunkle Stan wanted to put it in a cage and make money off it? We should just let it go." Dipper said patiently, pointing at the Chimera, who had by the swallowed the hat and was beginning to choke on the embroidered image of the mouse with pants.

"Can we at least give Sammy the meat?" Mable whined, upset.

"You named it? Argh, fine." Dipper said, giving in.

Dipper moved over and hit its back, knocking the hat out, and motioned for Mabel to give him the meat, which he dumped into its mouth quickly.

"Ok, we fed it-I mean, we fed _Sammy_." Dipper added, seeing Mabel's reaction to the 'it' part. "Happy now?" Mabel nodded. "Good. Ok 'Sammy', go on your way now, bye bye, hope you liked the meat, all that stuff." Dipper said unconvincingly, pointing off into the woods.

The Chimera got the message, but gave each twin a very slobbery lick before running off.

Mabel, whose face was covered in saliva, was ecstatic. "It's like being kissed by the whole wilderness!"

Dipper was less so. "It's like faceplanting in a swamp full of spit." He said drily, wiping the leftover saliva off his face.

"Mabel, can we go inside now? I want to look up some stuff in the 3, you should probably be there so I don't have to explain everything later." He said, beginning to walk into the shack, past the Pitt Cola vending machine in the front.

Mabel shrugged and followed. "Bye Sammy!" She shouted into the forest, before heading inside after her brother.

Now that the two were inside, they quickly got up to the attic, and placed the book in the middle of the floor so that they could both see it.

"Okay, so the first thing we should do is - Mabel, are you even listening?" Dipper queried, casting a glance at the mentioned person, who was distractedly picking something suspiciously blue and sparkly out of her braces.

"Mabel, did you get into the toothpaste _again?_" Dipper asked incredulously, rubbing his temples as if he had a headache.

Mabel nodded sheepishly, her face a light shade of rosy red from embarrassment. "Not that much though, so it's fine, right? What were you saying?" she changed the subject, pointing over at the 3.

Dipper rolled his eyes and flipped the book open. "Nevermind. I noticed some weird coded writing on some of the parts of our page of the book, I'm hoping to decode it now." He explained patiently, getting out a pencil from one of his vest pockets. "Mabel, can you grab me something to write on?"

"What, like a piece of glitter pizza? That's the first thing I have." Mabel said, pulling the aforementioned glittery pizza out of her sweater pocket.

"Ummm….How long has that been in there?" Dipper asked, not sure if he wanted to know.

"A few weeks. I accidentally washed it, too." Mabel replied honestly.

'_Ewww….and she says I'm gross for not washing my clothes…'_ Dipper thought to himself, scrunching his nose up at how the pizza looked - and smelled.

"Nevermind, I'm just gonna grab a piece of paper." Dipper did so, and first wrote out the coded message on the paper, reading the letters aloud as he did.

"D VLAWK VHQVH LV KDUG WR FRPH EB." Dipper continues to mumble the letters under his breath, going over ciphers he knows in his head.

Finally, he turns to Mabel and shakes his head. "I haven't seen this one before. Our best bet is to go to the library for information. Hopefully Old Man McGucket hasn't eaten any of the books we need." Dipper concluded, tucking the 3 safely back under his vest again.

"I didn't follow any of that!" Mabel said cheerfully, but she quickly climbed down the hatch in their room and went downstairs anyways. Dipper followed.

"Hey, where are you two dudes going? Is it another mystery-type thing?" Soos intercepted them on their way out the front door, leaning against the frame with one arm.

"Yep!" Mabel replied enthusiastically. "We're headed to the library right now!"

"Cool. Need a ride or anything?" Soos asked, ever eager to help.

"No, walking is fine. It might attract less attention anyways." Dipper reasoned.

"Plus Dipper probably needs exercise!" Mabel chimed in 'helpfully'.

"Well, good luck. I hope you dudes solve whatever it is." Soos said, and went back to doing…._whatever _it was he was doing before he spotted the twins.

Once out the door, the twins walked casually along the side of the dirt road, discussing whatever came to mind.

"Hey Dipper, do you think Sammy would want a sweater? I think he would, does the book say anything about his measurements? Oh hey, it's a woodpecker! Awww, it likes you!" Mabel cooed, watching said woodpecker land on Dipper's head.

It was a pretty little thing, with a red head and crest and a brown-gray body with speckles on the wings. It gave Dipper's hat a few pecks, then settled for just perching there. It really did seem to like Dipper.

"Yeah, I wonder why?" Dipper mused rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

All of a sudden the woodpecker chirped loudly, and continued making noises.

The two ignored it until a flock of birds came flying their direction.

One seagull came flying in and landed on Dipper's hat with the woodpecker.

"What the-? Ok, one is fine, but this is pushing it." Dipper said aloud.

"Hey look! The seagull has a cute little piece of paper! Do you think it's a seagull diploma from bird college?" Mabel asked randomly, pulling the paper out of the seagull's grasp. Once she did the seagull flew away.

"Can I see that paper, Mabel?" Dipper asked, reaching for the paper. Although he was pretty sure it wasn't a bird diploma, he did have another idea.

She handed him the paper and he quickly unfolded and read it, quietly so that it would be hard for anyone but him and Mabel to hear.

"Twins, we know of your predicament from the mermaids. Come to the docks and we will tell you a bit more. Seek the seals. Hmm, no signature." Dipper concluded, before folding the paper back up again and looking at Mabel.

"So, do we go for it?" he asked.

Mabel nodded. "We go for it. To the docks, Dippingsauce!" she exclaimed, and set off in a run, trying to beat her brother there.

Dipper arrived first.

"*huff* How - *huff* did you- *huff* beat me?" Mabel half-panted for breath, half-questioned.

"I'm the faster twin." Dipper said casually, not out of breath because he had been there for almost a minute. "If you're stronger than it only makes sense that I'm faster."

"It's only cause you run away from stuff more. Anyways, let's find seals!" Mabel exclaimed, and scanned the beach for any sight of the mentioned animals.

"About that, why would there be seals in _Oregon?_ I don't think there are any –" Dipper was cut off by Mabel.

"Found them!" She pointed towards some seals in the water, their doglike heads poking out. She began to dash over to that part of the dock.

"Wait, what?" Dipper stood there and gaped for a moment, before he ran as well.

The twins ran to the dock, until both were standing on the edge, holding their breath as a seal began to swim towards them.

**AN: Yay for terrible chapter endings and thinly veiled Disney references! The next chapter should be coming sometime soon, thanks for reading this one!**


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Hey guys! Chapter 3 is here! This chapter has sad stuff by the end, though I tried to keep it to a minimum since this is intended to be a comedy adventure story. By the way, I'm sorry that there isn't a lot of action, but I need to build plot! enjoy! Also, I don't own Gravity Falls, obviously. **

**(Dipper's POV)**

The seals reminded him of the ones he'd seen in California, near his home town, Piedmont. Funny, Piedmont seemed so far away, it was like he'd never lived there, and he and Mabel had been living in Gravity Falls forever. He'd have to think on that later.

Dipper stared intensely at the seals, preparing to pull out the 3. He was pretty sure that these weren't normal seals.

The seal came up to the dock, slowly pulling it's body up. It made a chuffing sound, that sounded something like a person about to speak clearing their throat.

The twins looked at it attentively, expecting it to be some sort of magic talking seal.

What they did not expect was for the seal to change into a person right in front of them.

The two 12 year-olds stood there, gaping in stunned silence.

The woman standing before them was tall and thin, much unlike the seal she had been. She had long brown hair that matched the color of the seals. Her brown eyes had a warm, inviting look to them, like a young schoolteacher's would. You could tell by the faint twitching in the corner of her upper mouth that she wanted to laugh, and probably did so often. She smiled warmly.

"Don't be afraid. I'm what they call a selkie. In your terms, a shape shifter who only does seals." She looked like she wanted to burst into laughter at that, as if she found it immensely funny, but she didn't and simply let the playful look dance across her eyes. "Of course, that's not at all what it is, but it makes the explanation much easier. I trust our seagull friend gave you the letter, right? It seems he even got assistance from this little guy on your hat." She gave the bird's head a light pat, it had just come and landed on Dipper's hat again.

Dipper looked up without moving his head, and sure enough the woodpecker was sticking it's head out over the bill and peering at Dipper, also curiously. So the bird had followed him here? He shook the thought off and turned back to the selkie.

"Yeah." Mabel said buoyantly, completely open to this turn of events.

The selkie grinned at her. "Me and my family," she motioned towards the seals in the water, "are here visiting out close friends, the merpeople. Charming little Mermando had quite a bit to say about you two, especially you, Mabel." She winked at her, and Mabel blushed, thought Dipper blushed too, although it was from embarrassment from the whole 'reverse CPR' thing.

"Anyways, we were visiting our friends, and a little bird – that would be the seagull – told us about the spot of bad luck you've run into. The land creatures of Gravity Falls can be quite a quarrelsome bunch, and you poor dears are stuck in the middle of one of their arguments, no older than little Mermando." She said, then looked specifically at Dipper. "And you don't need to worry about us water folk trying to get you on a 'team'. We can't turn people, and if we tried to force you to live with us you'd drown. Besides, we're far too peaceful to force anyone."

Dipper let out a huge breath of relief, and the selkie laughed good-naturedly.

"You two need more than one safe haven, being in the middle of all this. Me and my family have talked with the merpeople and we decided that, should you ever be in trouble near here, you can come into the lake and we'll guide you somewhere safe through the water." The selkie concluded, then looked out to the seals again. One of them barked.

"I should be getting back."

"Wait, what's your name?" Mabel asked curiously, speaking for the first time in a few minutes.

"Lily. My parents always had a thing for flowers, I have two sisters named Rose and Daisy. It was nice to meet you two. Bye!" She waved and took a leap off the dock.

The water splashed up on all sides and misted the dock, and when her head popped back up again it was a seal's. She swam off in a merry-looking way, seeming to playfully swim patterns only for amusement. The other seals joined in, and soon they got mixed up in their own carefree games to the point where Dipper could no longer tell which one was Lily.

"Whoa." Mabel breathed, watching them play and looking as if she had half a mind to leap off the dock and join in despite not being able to shapehift.

Dipper noticed that look and slowly began to edge both of them off the dock, until they were both walking away.

He glanced back at the seals and their game. He was almost envious, envious that they could be so carefree and happy even in the midst of what was beginning to sound like a war to his danger-sensitive mindset. They didn't take anything seriously, but they never got in trouble for it. Not once, he was sure, because the whole group of seals was joining in, none of them stayed out of the game to perform sensible jobs like sentry duty, or was careful not to draw attention to themselves.

'_No, I'd rather be safe than scolded, I'd rather be cautious than carefree__._' Dipper thought.

He glanced at Mabel, who was staring at the clouds in fascination of the one just ahead of them. "It looks like a roller-skating bunny!" She exclaimed.

'_Mabel, on the other hand, is probably of the opposite opinion. I used to share that opinion, but that was before….._' Dipper continued slowly, before he heard Mabel say something.

"Hey Dip, are we still going to the library?" Mabel asked casually, interrupting his train of thought.

"No, I want to go ahead and give this guy," He pointed to the woodpecker, which was _still _on his hat, "a name."

"I call naming him! I call it! I'll name him…..Flappy." Mabel said decidedly.

"Hey! You can't just name him without a second thought! Besides, _Flappy?_ What kind of name is that?" Dipper asked incredulously, not liking the name at all.

The still-unnamed woodpecker flew off of Dipper's hat and pecked Mable in the shoulder, before returning to his hat with a loud "Cawww!" and a dramatic spreading of his wings.

'_What a quirky little bird.'_ Dipper thought, grinning at the bird's antics.

"Fine. What do you want to name him, Dipper?" Mabel said grudgingly, sticking her tongue out at the mentioned bird.

"Hmmm…..How does 'Jet' sound? I like that, do you?" Dipper took his hat off to look at the woodpecker, who turned his head and stared critically at Dipper with his right eye. Eventually he chirped happily and flew around Dipper's head in a circle a few times, before flying upwards and doing a loop that circled the sun's position.

"Huh. The sun's almost setting." Dipper commented, putting his blue and white hat back on and securing it while the newly dubbed Jet landed back on it gracefully. It had gotten darker out without them even realizing it.

"Well, let's go back to the shack then!" Mabel said, pointing out the obvious.

Dipper nodded and started walking.

"So, you have a pet too now. Speaking of which….how about that Chimera? C'mon, pleeeeaaase?...please?..."

The twins walked to the shack, and while Dipper rolled his eyes, Mabel provided all of the conversation and Jet flew ahead and circled back, playfully dive-bombing the twins when conversation did not provide enough entertainment.

Just before sundown, they arrived at the Shack, and retreated to the attic.

Mabel absentmindedly began to finish up the sweater for waddles, Dipper played with Jet on and off, seeing if he would retrieve small objects for him after being taught what they were. He would.

'_What a smart bird.'_ He thought to himself, running a hand across the mentioned bird's back. He wondered why the bird was so tame. Was it maybe someone else's bird before? Dipper did remember hearing something about how it used to be legal to marry woodpeckers in the town. He cleared his head of the thought. He had enough to think about already.

The sun had gone down, so Dipper turned on the lantern by the window, which they had replaced after Mabel had shot out the first one, broke the second one in a game of attic stuff golf, and knocked the third one over a different time.

"I finished my sweater for Waddles!" Mabel exclaimed, before running downstairs to go get the pig.

Dipper flopped down onto his bed, debating whether or not to go to sleep when Mabel came back up or to read one of the books on his summer reading list. After all, "The Sibling Brothers: The Case of the Caper-Case-Caper 2" was probably a pretty good book.

There was also the option of continuing to research the page in the 3, but to be honest, he was afraid – no, _apprehensive_ – to know more about that, what if it was something really bad? Sometimes, ignorance is bliss, a lesson he'd learned the hard way many times over and still didn't really believe.

Mabel came back up, holding a very upset-looking Waddles, who was wearing the sweater she had made him and squealing unhappily. Mabel was wearing her matching sweater, which she had left downstairs at some point and then swapped out for the one she had been wearing previously and came upstairs with it on.

"Dipper, look! Twins!" She twirled around.

Dipper stared at her blankly.

"I find that insulting." He declared jokingly, though he hid the joking part to himself. He turned away in mock-anger, a faked serious expression on his face.

'_3, 2…1'_ Dipper counted down in his head.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean it! That's just one of those thing people say! I didn't - I don't –" Mabel sputtered, thinking she really did insult him. She stopped when she noticed that Dipper was laughing.

"Hey!" realization dawned on her. "You tricked me!" She started to laugh as well, then jumped onto Dipper's bed and playfully shoved him. He shoved back, and soon they were goofing off all over the room. It finally ended when Dipper said they should get some sleep. Jet was already nice and cozy in a makeshift nest he'd made in one of the attic corners, one of the ones that didn't already have a nest in it.

"You're no fun…" Mabel pouted, before lighting up as she had an idea. "Hey, do you think we can go to Greasy's Diner tomorrow?"

"Well, let's see, how does that place _smell_ to you? Because to me, it's part man-smell, and the other part is _really _bad man-smell. I don't know why, but overall it just smells like the color brown." Dipper commented dryly. He didn't exactly _love _going there since the whole manliness-tester thing, not to mention Grunkle Stan wouldn't take them anyways because he was avoiding Lazy Suzan.

"Alright alright, I'll go to bed now…" Mabel muttered, getting the hint that they weren't going. She slipped under her bed covers easily, and within minutes Dipper could hear the slow whistling from her braces that signaled that she had fallen asleep. He wished he could fall asleep so easily.

Instead he lie in bed, thinking of all of the things he hadn't had time to think about during the day. That included a lot of things, but the biggest thought that lingered on his mind was the one about earlier, when he and Mabel had been watching the seals at the dock play.

"_You're no fun…" _He heard what seemed to be an echo of Mabel from just minutes earlier.

'_I used to be almost as carefree as Mabel…before…..'_

**(**_**Flashback**_**)**

_He had only just gotten to school with his sister when he was told some bad news. They were going to be separated. In different classes. Oh well, at least it was an opportunity to make some new friends. It was the first day of first grade, and he was really excited. He happily walked to his class, after a hug from Mabel. He set his backpack under the cubby marked with his name and took a seat at his desk, which he had located during open house night, before school started. He hadn't even pulled out his pencil when he heard some other kids enter the room. He got up from his chair and waved at them, smiling enthusiastically. _

_They took a look at him and walked over._

"_Hi! My name's –" Dipper began to introduce himself to the boys, when all of a sudden he was shoved by the bigger one. _

"_We don't care what your name is, Dweeb! What we DO care about is your dumb birthmark!" he shouted. _

"_Oh! Well, yeah, my Mom says it looks like a constell…constellashun, I think that was the word…."Dipper began, happily unaware of what the boys were doing. _

_The other boy came up behind him and held his arms back._

"_What're you doing? Is this a game? What's it called?" Dipper asked questions while the boys walked him out of the room. _

"_You'll see. It's a game my older brother taught me." The bigger one said with a smirk. _

"_Yaaay!" Dipper cheered. The boys pushed him into the bathroom, all the way to a stall. _

_Now Dipper was confused. "What kind of game is this? This smells bad. I think we're going to be late for class…." Dipper was slowly getting anxious and nervous. _

"_It's called….Flush the Freak!" The smaller boy said, and swiftly knocked Dipper to his knees and pushed his face close to the edge of the toilet bowl._

"_I-I don't like this game….." Dipper whined, looking around frantically._

"_Well we do, sooo….FLUSH! FLUSH! FLUSH!" The bigger one began to chant. Other boys slowly began to come into the bathroom, drawn by the noise. The oldest boys walked past the room, shaking their heads, and the other ones simply gathered and watched. Some girls were outside of the room even, peering in and trying to get a glimpse of what was happening. _

_Dipper shuddered and closed his eyes._

_They dunked his head into the cold toilet and…they flushed it. He pulled his head out after the spin, coughing and hacking up nasty water, begging them not to do it again, offering to do their homework if they'd just STOP. They refused, and pushed him back in._

_Seventeen times. Seventeen times, they did the unmentionable action, until they finally let him go, dripping water everywhere. They laughed, hit him roughly on the back, and walked out of the bathroom. Nobody said a word about what happened, and nobody helped him up or sympathized. Nobody felt bad._

_He sat in a different stall and cried. He cried until his head and hair were dry. He didn't care what ANYONE said, he was NEVER, EVER going to trust anyone again. Never going to trust anyone but his sister. _

_And from that traumatizing first day on, Dipper was suspicious of everyone, over calculating, and wary of everything. He never told Mabel what happened that day, but she never asked. He had gotten so edgy in the class, that he had been moved into Mabel's class in hopes that she would be able to calm him down a little._

_It worked, but only a little. For almost a year, Dipper wouldn't talk to anyone but Mabel, his parents, and the teacher. Eventually he relaxed more around other people, but he never truly let his guard down. His hair was now kept brushed over his birthmark, he never showed it to anyone but his most trusted friends, and he had none. He was not as open and trusting as Mabel was anymore, and probably never would be._

"_Dipper!" everyone would call him by his nickname now, even his sister. He didn't even trust the teacher to know, and had his parents talk to the school board to legally register him as Dipper Pines. He didn't want anyone to call him by his real name. He figured that those boys would get a hold of it and use it to track him down. Track him down and try to play that game again….with the toilet….the boys were going to track him down, he was sure. They had it out for him. He was absolutely certain….._

**(**_**Flashback End**_**)**

"_Dipper_!"

Dipper snapped out of his flashback to find that he had fallen asleep thinking about it.

His eyes snapped open and he sat bolt upright in bed, looking around frantically as if he expected the boys from his first grade class to pop out of nowhere. He was breathing heavily, and he glanced around the room, finding only the usual stuff in the attic and a _very _concerned Mabel.

He slowed his breathing down, and wiped his head of the sweat that was there and sank back into his pillow. He hadn't thought about that day in a _really_ long time.

He looked at Mabel again, who was still worried-looking.

"Are you alright?" She asked quickly.

"Fine.." He replied weakly. He knew she was going to ask about it, and squeeze the answer out of him, but he still wanted to not tell her. He never ever wanted to tell her.

"No. '_Fine'_ is not screaming 'Stop, stop, stop!' in your sleep!" She said sternly, looking like a mother scolding a child.

She leaned in close to him, now sitting on his bed."Dipper, what happened? Are you not telling me something? Because you know that I'll find out one way or another, so you'd better _spill it, _bro bro."

"Nothing." Dipper said unconvincingly.

"_Dipper._ Tell me. What. Happened." Mabel narrowed her eyes, glaring at her brother. He would crack and tell her eventually.

"Fine. You want to know what happened? The first day of first grade. Remember that? Remember how I got all quiet and distrustful and suspicious after that? Remember how it happened 'out of nowhere' and 'for no reason'? Well, do you?" Dipper demanded. Mabel nodded.

"Well there was a reason. The boys in my class…they took me out to the bathroom and said we would play a game. I followed along because I trusted them." Mabel's eyes widened at the mention of the bathroom.

"No…they didn't…" She whispered.

"Yes, they did. Seventeen swirlies, Mabel. And everyone was there watching, not doing _anything _about it._ That's _the reason I don't trust anyone. I have a perfectly good reason. So if you don't mind, I'm going to bed and_ never talking about that day again. _Goodnight." Dipper's voice broke at the word 'never', and he pulled the blanket back over himself, and rolled over.

He could tell Mabel was still sitting on his bed because she hadn't moved. He heard the flapping of wings as Jet flew down and landed in front of Dipper, where he could see him, and hopped up onto his head, which was sideways.

Jet gave him a few light pecks, not really hurting Dipper but proving he was there on his head.

"Dipper…..I'm sorry…" Mabel said quietly. Jet flew back up to his makeshift nest as Mabel shook Dipper's side.

"Dipper….Dipper…..Dipper, c'mon, please…..Dipper!" Mabel prodded his side and shook him as she spoke, trying to get him to talk to her.

Finally he groaned and rolled over to face her.

"What do you want me to say?" He asked her. "What is there to say about that? It happened."

"I'm just sorry it happened." She admitted softly.

"You don't need to be sorry. You didn't do it. The boys did. Are we done now? I'm going to sleep." Dipper said, preparing to turn over in bed again.

"We both know that's a lie. You don't get that much sleep." Mabel pointed at him accusingly.

"I don't want to talk about it." He said stubbornly.

"I don't either." Mabel replied. "I want to sleep here tonight."

"You have a bed, you know. We don't have to share it like we do at home." Dipper pointed out.

"I know that." She replied easily.

"Then why-"

"Because I want to. Now move over." She got up quickly and pulled her blanket off her bed, then brought it over to Dipper's bed. She wrapped herself up in it on the left side of the bed, and Dipper scooted further to the right.

"If you have another nightmare, wake me up or you'll never hear the end it." She warned playfully, grinning.

"I know." He grinned back, then rolled over so that his back was facing her and slowly drifted into sleep. He wouldn't think about it again, but it had actually felt good to finally tell someone about it.

Dipper slept soundly all night, so soundly he didn't notice Mabel get up out of the bed and take a picture of Jet perching on his head while he slept. He didn't even notice when she went back to sleep in her own bed.

**AN: Ok, so a few things to note down here, **_**I'm still not doing Pinecest. Sleeping in the same bed as your sibling is perfectly normal behavior, I do it with my little siblings sometimes if they have nightmares or something bad happened. It does not mean that '**_**OMG they're in love!'. So yeah. The Disney reference in this chapter could be tricky for some, so I'll give you a hint : it's from a movie, not a show, and it includes a princess. That's all you get for a hint, sorry if my hint sucks anyways. Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Okay, sorry for the long wait! Chapter four is here! This chapter gets pretty heated towards the end, and some characters are introduced! Well, more like shown, but either way the first glimpse of them is in this chapter. I don't own Gravity Falls. **

**(Mabel's POV)**

Mabel quietly slipped out of bed and got her clothes for the day on. She shot a glance at the still-sleeping Dipper before heading downstairs.

Nobody else was up, seeing as it was five in the morning. Mabel just couldn't sleep any longer. It seemed that now it was her who had trouble sleeping instead of her brother.

Her brother.

Mabel frowned at the memory of last night, she had never known that there was really a reason for all of it… Dipper wouldn't even tell her about it, and something told her that there might have been more to it.

She clenched her fists and grated her teeth, expressing exactly how mad she was that she hadn't known all that time.

Oh, if she could just get her hands on those boys right now…the things she would do to those no-good rats…

Her teeth grated against each other, and she felt the overwhelming desire to punch something. She carried this desire out on the old yellow chair, punching it .

Its cushion sank in deep and receded, as if it was drawing away from the force that had punched it, but it slowly puffed out more. The indentation, however, the mark that was left, remained. Mabel stared at it for a little while.

She sighed, and blew a strand of her morning bed-head hair out of her face.

'_It won't do any good to get mad now.'_ She thought to herself.

She walked into the kitchen slowly. She knew just how to make things a little better.

Mabel rummaged through the cupboards until she found all of the ingredients and tools for one of her and Dipper's favorite foods, pancakes.

She happily began to make the batter, humming softly to herself. When she was nearly done, she sprayed some non-stick stuff on the pan she had gotten out, and turned the stove on at low.

"Pancakes, pancakes…" She said quietly, beginning to mix the batter that she had been making until it was liquid-like.

She began to pour it out onto the pan, which was resting on the stove, wondering if she should make shapes with it.

She stopped pouring when she had a decent amount of batter for one pancake, and absentmindedly poked at the batter with a spatula as if messing around with the shapes she could make.

She stared at the odd blob shape on the pan. It didn't really look like anything, but Mabel found her imagination slowly distorting the image into a real shape.

She moved the spatula around the imagined image, and shook her head, to find that she had actually made the shape she wanted. She smiled and finished making the pancake, before setting it aside on a plate and making them for the other residents of the shack, those being Grunkle Stan and herself.

When she finished that, she decided to touch up the images on all of them.

For Dipper's pancake, she carefully made it look just like what she intended, sticking her tongue out in concentration as she used syrup to complete the image.

She grinned at her work. It was a pancake version of Dipper's favorite hat, complete with a syrup pine tree.

Grunkle Stan's was, of course, his own face. She had already had to make this for him a few times, so she just did the same thing as always.

As for hers….it was a waffle with big arms, even though it was actually a pancake.

She set them in all of their predestinated spots at the table and glanced at the clock. 5:45.

'_Looks like I have quite a bit of time then, huh?'_ Mabel thought to herself, pushing out from her chair and getting up to wander the house.

All of a sudden, nature called, and she rushed to the bathroom to answer. Instead of doing so, however, she wound up staring at the toilet.

She grimaced and glared at it.

Without another thought, she kicked it as hard as she could and ran out of the room.

Sure, she still had to go, but she could hold it until her foot recovered.

She nurtured her foot gently, a big red mark had formed where she had kicked the thing with her bare foot. Tears stung her eyes from pain, and a large, dark bruise began to form on her foot.

She went in to the living room and sat down on the yellow chair, moving so that her head lay on one arm rest and her feet hung off the other.

Mabel stared at the ceiling. She felt cheated.

For once, she couldn't think of something cheerful to say.

She moved her eyes so that she was looking at the room upside down instead of the ceiling.

Maybe it was time for her to do something serious. Maybe it was time for her to do something important. She thought back to her experiences of the summer, and even of elementary school, with Dipper.

She noticed that he was the one always planning and strategizing to protect the both of them, though he put extra priority on her.

She didn't think that was right. She pushed out of the chair to stand on both feet, trying and failing to suppress her wincing when she put weight on her now very bruised foot.

She had a determined look to her.

"I'll help now. From now on…I'll protect my little brother. And we'll both do that for the other, and be happy, and safe. I swear it'll happen." She recited her thoughts quietly, with all the confidence in the world backing up those words.

She took a deep breath and looked at the clock again. 6:05.

She walked over to the bathroom again, this time succeeding in suppressing her wince from the injured foot.

She washed her hands when she was done and slowly scuttled back up to the attic, opening and closing the hatch quietly so as not to disturb the hopefully still-sleeping Dipper.

He was still sleeping, and Jet was rested on his head, though Jet stirred and looked at her when she entered. Mabel sat down on her own bed and looked around for something to do until 6:30, the time she deemed appropriate to wake Dipper up at. After all, the pancakes couldn't get _too _cold.

She pulled some socks on, and slipped her feet into the shoes. She didn't wear them on casual relaxing days around the house normally, but she also didn't want anyone asking about her foot.

She reached over to the pile of age-inappropriate romance novels that Grenda had left for her.

She started on one of the sequels to 'Wolfman Bare Chest'.

She giggled quietly at the extra romantic parts, and fantasized about werewolves for a while. Before she knew it, it was 6:35.

She set the book down and walked with a spring in her step over to Dipper's bed.

Jet flew away as Mabel grabbed Dipper's shoulders and began to shake him.

"Good morning, Dipper! Isn't it nice out today? It's so bright and there are birds singing and I made pancakes for everyone!" She exclaimed in a singsongy voice.

That got Dipper up pretty quickly.

"Morning, Mabel. I slept pretty good last night, surprisingly." It was true. The bags under his eyes had become a little less pronounced. "Hey, what time did you get up today?" He asked casually as he pulled his vest on and flattened his hair, before pulling his hat on.

"Oh, just like 5:00, not really that early." Mabel waved it off, hoping he wouldn't catch the time and would only note the casual air of conversation her voice had.

Unfortunately, that was not what happened.

"5:00?! Mabel, why did you get up that early?" He asked worriedly.

"Don't know, that's just when I woke up." Mabel shrugged. "Now, do you want your pancake or not?"

"Yes!" Dipper remembered why he had gotten out of bed and quickly ran downstairs.

Mabel followed, smiling but thinking '_That was a close one.'_ All the while.

She walked down the stairs slower than normal because of her foot, but managed to keep up with Dipper, who was still excited for the pancakes.

He got into the kitchen just before she did, and rushed to his chair to look at his pancake.

"Thanks, Mabel! How do you get it into these shapes anyways?" He asked curiously, taking a moment to look at the pancake before beginning to eat it.

"I'm an arts and crafts master and shaping pancakes is art! That's all you need to know!" She explained cheerfully, taking her own seat and beginning to eat her pancake as well.

"So, what's your plan for today, Dip?" She asked casually between mouthfuls of food.

"Hmm, I'm thinking we should go to the library and check for books. It's probably safe, and informative." Dipper mumbled just loud enough for Mabel to hear. He appeared to be thinking about something.

Mabel didn't need to wait long before he asked, "Do you think Jet will be allowed in the library?"

"Probably not." She replied bluntly. "But he'll be fine in our room for a while. He can play with Waddles!" she exclaimed cheerfully, before finishing off her pancake.

"I guess you're right. Today is our one day off for the week, so we should get going now. Then we can get other things done later." He suggested, after having finished his food. He looked pretty eager to go do something for the day.

"Then what are we waiting for?!" Mabel exclaimed, jumping out of her chair. "Let's go!"

She dashed towards the door, making sure that Dipper was right behind her.

**(Dipper's POV)**

Dipper ran after Mabel shortly after her departure, already thinking of what route to use to get to the library.

"Hey, Mabel! We're going the long way to cut around Gideon's house, right?" He asked, double checking even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.

To his surprise, he didn't.

"No, let's go right past it! Just to spite him!" She replied merrily, skipping off in the direction in the same time as if she didn't have a care in the world or as if she hadn't just suggested walking past their sworn enemy's base of operations.

"Uhh, you seem pretty relaxed about that, you know...it could be a bad idea." He pointed out skeptically, wondering what in the world his twin was thinking to suggest that.

"I need a little action!" She protested lightly, "Besides, what better way to start off the day than having a fight with your arch nemesis? It'll be fun to hear him swear vengeance on us for the…..I don't know, how many times has he done that already? 34 times, maybe?" She drifted off into thought as she tried to count the instances where their rival had done that.

Meanwhile, Dipper was in thought himself.

'_Mabel will never cease to surprise me, will she? Well, if her mind is that set on walking past his house, all I can really do is hope he's not awake yet, or that he doesn't notice us…or maybe that he's inside doing something while we walk past…'_ He thought, resigned to the route they were taking.

"Okay, we should try and walk past his house before he wakes up, then." Dipper announced to Mabel, before beginning to walk quickly towards the road they would be walking on.

"Got it!" She chimed in happily.

The two made their way over to the library on the route that would go right past Gideon's house, Dipper was walking quickly and worrying about what Gideon might do if he caught them while Mabel was skipping and apparently thinking happy thoughts about the entire world or something, if her expression and the tune she was humming had anything to say about how she was feeling.

When they arrived at the dreaded street, Dipper was intrigued by the strange markings and patterns that were right on Gideon's front lawn. In the direct center of it was a book.

"Well this is a weird hobby even for Gideon." Mabel remarked bluntly, gesturing to the strange markings on the lawn, while Dipper investigated it.

'_What the heck could this be?'_ He thought curiously, and, unable to help himself, he stepped in the pattern and grabbed the book from the center of the circle it was in.

He gasped when he saw the cover.

Running out of the marked area, he held the book up for Mabel to see.

"Mabel, look! It's just like mine, except it's got a two marked on the front!" He exclaimed, showing her the book.

"Whoa! Dipper, do you know what this means?!" She exclaimed, looking as excited as Dipper did.

"Yeah, it means-"Dipper was cut off by Mabel.

"It means that now I get one too, right?"

"Yeah, that too! We should get a better look at it in the library though, before Gideon comes out and sees us." Dipper nodded to her and stole a glance back at the house, seeing signs of activity in it as he spoke.

"Let's go then!" Mabel tugged on his arm and practically dragged him to the library in her excitement.

Once the twins were safely at a table in the library, Mabel took the 2 and opened it up on the table.

Leafing through a few pages, the twins took in the information the book contained. Their first book, 3, contained info mostly on creatures and beings of Gravity Falls, but it soon became apparent that the 2 held info on relics, artifacts, and any objects that could grant the user increased abilities or powers. It told them how to make some of them, and which objects were good against which creatures. But the part that intrigued Dipper the most was that it mentioned another book, which would be, if his assumptions were correct, 1.

But what information could 1 contain, and where could it be? would somebody else already have it? Or would it still be hidden away somewhere?

Another consistency between the books was that that strange code was also in it.

"Okay Mabel, you stay here while I go find some books that might help us decode this stuff. Got it?" he stood up from the table and smiled when Mabel gave him a thumbs up.

"I'll be right here!" she grinned enthusiastically and waved him off, going back to looking through 2 as he walked away.

'_Let's see….ciphers, ciphers…where would those books be? Would that count as a fiction or how to book? Maybe non-fiction? I'll have to check on the library computer to see what section books like that are in…'_Dipper thought to himself, already walking towards the library's dinosaur of a computer.

On his way there, a man bumped into him.

"Sorry." The man said gruffly, before walking off quickly.

It was normal enough, but something about that guy didn't seem right…

'_Something about that guy rubs me the wrong way… as long as I don't see him again it shouldn't be a problem, but…it's unnerving. Something about him isn't right, but what was it? What was wrong with that picture? No, I'm reading too much into this. Right now I just need to find the cipher books.'_ Dipper shook off his unease and began to use the library computer, which was starting up slower than he'd previously thought possible.

"Hurry up, hurry up…." He muttered in frustration, watching as the computer finished starting up and went onto the desktop after what seemed like ages.

He clicked on the book finder icon and groaned as the computer launched another loading sequence.

After a few minutes of waiting, he finally got his answer.

'_A good one is in the how to section, under the author's last name of Radcliffe. I should get it quickly and get back to Mabel, who knows what she's been getting up to while I've been gone…'_ Dipper quickly found the book he was looking for in the section he found on the computer, and quickly walked back to the table he and his sister were using.

He froze in the aisle after the table had just come into his sights. Standing directly behind Mabel was the man from earlier. In an instant, Dipper realized what was wrong with the picture.

His eyes.

The man's eyes were oddly shaped, and rather than an iris, pupil, and then the whites of the eye, the man's eyes had no whites, and the pupil was a black slit.

That was what had disturbed Dipper. The man had reptile eyes.

And…

The man was also coming up from behind his sister!

"Mabel, turn around!" He shouted, running out of the aisle and pointing. He didn't care if he was in a library, seeing as nobody else was there, not even a librarian.

Mabel dropped the book she was reading and wheeled around.

"Aaaaaaaaaah! Dipper, who is this guy?!" She screamed, stumbling over the chair as she tried to escape the table. She tripped and landed sprawled over the floor, as all main characters do when they are trying to escape something.

"Heheh. This was too easy. All I need to do now is take this runt to boss and we'll do exactly what needs to be done…heheh." The man chuckled as he walked casually over to where Mabel was still struggling to get up. His tongue was forked much in the same way as a snake or lizard's would be.

Dipper ran in to tackle the man before he got a chance to pick up Mabel, but bounced off harmlessly.

'_If only I wasn't so weak…!'_ Dipper thought angrily, getting up and preparing to tackle the man again.

However, just before he made contact, the strange man held a hand out and stopped Dipper instantly. In fact, it seemed like almost all time had stopped. It was dead quiet, but I guess Dipper could chalk that one up to being in an empty library.

Mabel was slowly starting to get up onto her hands and knees, and Dipper was trying to force past the man but only succeeding in tiring himself out. The man hadn't even moved an inch from Dipper's attempts to move him. Dipper glared boldly at the man, despite knowing that he would not win if they got into a fight.

He silently cursed himself for not being stronger.

"I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking exactly. You're wishing you weren't a weakling. That you had power. That you could become stronger and move me out of the way." The man's mouth began to form into a small smile when he saw Dipper's determined face falter.

"I'm right, aren't I?" the man continued casually, with an air of incredible calm about him. "You only desire what every mortal being desires. Power. It is the foundation of life itself. You can see it everywhere. Two deer, fighting for a mate. The stronger deer always gets the mate, and the weaker one is left to go find another one and hope nobody challenges him for it. Two wolf packs fighting over territory. The stronger wolves will always either defend their territory successfully if they are defending or drive out the other wolves if they are attacking. You can see it in human society, this lust for power that mortals have." The man said, clenching his free hand into a fist. His lips curled into a confident smirk, and revealed sharper teeth than any normal human would have. "A man spends his entire life working in hopes of gaining wealth. The more wealth a man gets, the more power he has in society. The more likely it is his name will be remembered for more than just a few futile years after his demise. The more power he has, the closer his name is to becoming immortalized among humanity after his death, and the more control he has over the people around him during his life. It is simple, really. Every being on this planet…wants to be powerful. Every being hopes to become so powerful that they will live on forever, be it by spoken word or by scars left on enemies….because every mortal thing on this green earth is also afraid of death. They feel that if they have enough power, they can keep living, even if it's just for one more day. They feel that if they just leave a mark on the world, that their existence will not be futile. I know what you seek, boy, even if you do not. You seek power. The building block of all that is and all that will be!" the man's eyes blazed like fire, and after looking into them Dipper took a sharp breath before falling over to his knees, partly out of exhaustion from pushing against him so long and partly from shock at the true extent of what the man had said. Mabel shuddered and slowly began to stand up, inching toward her brother as if for back up.

The man looked down at them coolly, expressing almost no emotion but bemusement at their behavior, or maybe their weakness. He seemed pretty laid-back. He wasn't worried or strained at all by any of it.

"The both of you….you're both truly pitiful." The man made a face in mock sympathy and held his hands together beneath his head. "I know that if I threatened you now you'd both beg for your lives as anyone would. But…Don't you want something more than the wild goose chase that mortals use to pass their time until death? I know what you will do, because as much as you will deny it, as far as the rest of the world's concerned, both of you mean nothing more than dust in the wind. There are millions of people who will end up doing the exact same things as you do in your life, or better. I know your current future because it is the same as at least a million others. You'll find some job when you are grown up, and you'll try to support yourself and, when you have one, your family. You'll work or watch children that you had for likely no other reason but for your family name to live on, for people to be able to say, "I was related to.." and your name. you'll face hardships and get over them with time, and then you'll die as every other human on the planet will. If you do something extreme in your life, you might live on in the minds of civilization for a few extra years after your direct family members pass on. If you invent or discover something, you will perhaps go on for a decade after your known relatives pass away. On the off chance you do something truly incredible and awe-inspiring, you will be remembered for centuries maybe, but soon forgotten in favor of other heroes and idols of society. But I can give you power. All you need to do is come with me. I will take you to the rest of the dragon clans, which have united under our current goal. You only need to come along with me and undergo a few things…and you will achieve power beyond belief. The power of the dragons. So what say you? Do you accept?" the draconic man asked, his eyebrows cocked in anticipation of the twins' responses.

Mabel and Dipper exchanged glances.

"Never, you big dragon butt face!" Mabel exclaimed angrily, jumping to her feet and tugging on Dipper's arm to signify that they should be leaving. She made a fist at the man, as if she was in the position to threaten him.

"Oh, Mabel. I should have expected such an outburst from the less intelligent twin." He said condescendingly, shaking his head slowly.

"Hey!" Dipper shouted furiously. "Don't insult her!"

"Insolent children. Even if you refuse, I will take you by force. And, once you have undergone the rituals…you will see my point of view…as for now…..sleep tight…" the man held one hand out, and his eyes flashed purple. The twins stopped right where they were and fell into sleep almost instantly.

Before they did though, Dipper locked eyes with a girl who had been standing in front of the library and had apparently seen all of that unfold.

Her red hair and her mouth moving to form quiet words were the last things he saw before he fell asleep.

**AN: Okay, so, I have to tell you now, writing all of the stuff that guy said was really tough! I mean, sheesh, talk about a downer, right? I'm going to stare at a wall now and rethink **_**everything. **_**XD So yeah… what will happen to the twins? What does that redheaded girl have to do with it? And, as for the hint towards the Disney reference, it's ridiculously hard to spot so I'll tell you what it is but not the movie it came from. The reference was the last name of the author of the book Dipper grabs. Anyways, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!**


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